CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's KEENAN: 'We're A Multi-Faceted Band'

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY vocalist/guitarist Pepper Keenan and guitarist Woody Weatherman spoke to Digital-Noise.net while the band was in Minnesota for a show March 23, 2005. Several excerpts from the interview follow:

Digital-Noise.net: Tell me how things have been going on this MOTÖRHEAD adventure, thus far.

Pepper Keenan: "Everything's going great man. MOTÖRHEAD's a band we've never played with and we've always wanted to all these years and we finally hooked up. I think the two bands compliment each other very well. We're not like MOTÖRHEAD and MOTÖRHEAD ain't like us. But I think we're both equal to rock it you know. And we've both been at it for awhile. MOTÖRHEAD's happy and we're very happy. We're having a great time."

Digital-Noise.net: How did you guys initially get hooked up with Lemmy and decide to go on this big tour?

Pepper Keenan: "I had actually said in a magazine a couple times, when people asked me who we wanted to tour with, I'd say, 'MOTÖRHEAD would be a great band to tour with.' I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but I think they found out that we had a record coming out and the record company talked and blah, blah, blah and there you go. It pretty much happened that way. It was pretty simple."

Digital-Noise.net: I've been spinning "In the Arms of God" for the past few days non-stop and have been getting more and more involved in it. I look at it like it's its own COC entity with tiny influences in there. Sometimes you hear SABBATH, SOUNDGARDEN, METALLICA, even "Infinite War" has a MOTÖRHEAD vibe to it. How do you see this album now that it's done and you've had a chance to really listen to it?

Pepper Keenan: "I think at this point in time, I think from other people hearing it and being blown away, I think it's just the antithesis of what COC is all about. We're a multi-faceted band. We're not one-dimensional. We never claimed to be anything like that. I think this is probably the pinnacle of all the stuff we've been doing over the years and thrown into one thing. At this point, influence-wise, we just influence each other 'cause we're very open minded about what we do and we kind of let the songs go their own direction. We're just musicians, we try and expand the boundaries of what's expected. Our sound guy, I was talking to our sound guy the other day, he said there's not many bands that can touch you guys. We're kind of our own little thing at this point. We'll do the southern fried boogie shit all the way to the straight up, discharge metal. We pull both of ‘em off. Not many bands can do that."

Digital-Noise.net: This is kind of off track a little bit, but tell me about the process of trying out for that open METALLICA bass player position. Were you really willing to give up DOWN and COC to be a part of that?

Pepper Keenan: "I don't know. That was something they asked me to do. It wasn't something I asked to do. And I was honored to do it and it was a very wonderful thing, you know. I think everything turned out cool for everybody involved. It was an interesting thing for me to see. I don't think I would've been Pepper Keenan anymore. I just would've been the bass player from METALLICA. I don't know if I could've dealt with that."

Digital-Noise.net: That's kind of why I was asking.

Pepper Keenan: "Yeah. I don't know in the long run if I would've done that."

Digital-Noise.net: You've been a part of this crazy ride since the very beginning. When you look back at all the changes that have been made in this band and the evolution this band experienced, what are you most proud of?

Woody Weatherman: "I think I'm most proud that we've been able to keep this thing together and just have one type of thing going the whole time. We've always done what felt natural at the time. It's never been a conscious decision to this kind of shit or that kind of shit. We've always just stuck with what came out of the songwriting at the time. It kind of better with age (laughs). You learn how to play the guitar and you learn how to play the drums or whatever and it continues to improve on a natural level."

Read the entire interview at Digital-Noise.net.